Sidewalk Explodes Underneath Queens Man

This is probably not Bill Deblasio's fault but I am going to add this to the list for the Groundhog Killer. A Queens man, Barry West, 57, was walking to go pay his cell phone bill when BOOM! Something from underground in a subway grate just goes up in an inferno. 

The scary thing is, subway grates are always steaming or smoking so your average New Yorker wouldn't have batted an eye at a smoking grate. You see New York City has free steam for heating and that gets distributed in tunnels across the city. It is not uncommon to see literal steam stacks that let out steam in the middle of the street.

Sometimes the steam doesn't even go through a steam stack and just comes out of the grates like in this photo.

So when this man walked over a steaming/smoking grate on Farmers Boulevard in St. Albans around 5:30 pm there wasn't much suspicion in his mind. As someone who works in NYC I will now be more cautious of steamy grates as they may not be steam anymore.

The Queens man is recovering from 2nd-degree burns and most likely is being harassed by lawyers who want to take his case and make a small fortune for him, and themselves.